BOSTON — Nat Silver, associate curator of the collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, brings contemporary relevance to a Fifteenth Century painting by Fra Angelico. “Assumption and Dormition of the Virgin” was painted for the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy, which was, at that time, the home of the Pope. “This painting would have been brought out of [the church], probably for only one day a year,” said Silver. “And that’s the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin. It’s the 15th of August, the same date as the Fisherman’s Feast.” Silver attends Boston’s own Fisherman’s Feast in the North End, seeking the same sort of pageantry and ritual that surrounded the painting in earlier days, providing insight into the transcendent nature of symbolism that has survived the test of time to accompany us in present day. For more information, www.gardnermuseum.org or 617-566-1401.